Heartbreak in Meyerland

Posted 4:26 p.m.

Eden McCleskey, 37, and her husband made calls Sunday morning from the kitchen of her in-laws’ house in College Station.

Their two children — ages three and four — scrambled onto their laps as the McCleskeys phoned their insurance company, remediators and the prior owners of their Meyerland home who might be able to put them in touch with a neighbor who could check on their house.

The McCleskeys had headed out of Houston at about 7 a.m. on Friday.

They had turned off their home’s power. They had shut down the water main. They had stacked their antique piano on boxes, and had piled the dining room table and chairs on a bed that was too heavy to move.

The only thing they had forgotten to do was get a neighbor’s cell phone number.

Back in 2008, McCleskey toughed out Hurricane Ike.

But, having small children at home prompted her to leave her home of two months for College Station.

“Better safe than sorry,” McCleskey said.

The McCleskeys bought their Meyerland home, a few blocks from Brays Bayou, in February. After a head-to-toe remodel, they moved in in June.

Insurance regulations kept them from raising their house — which had flooded twice in as many years — during the remodel.

So, they applied for a FEMA grant to help fund the home’s raise at a future date. They turned in the grant by the Aug. 25 deadline, the morning before Hurricane Harvey hit the coast.

From the kitchen table — covered with A&M pendants — of the College Station home, McCleskey scoured her neighborhood Facebook group.

Two to six feet of water had seeped into every other house on their block. There was no way their house was

unscathed.

She worried how much damage had been done to what was her family’s dream home. She debated how quickly the family could get back to Houston. She wondered whether their grant application would be approved.

“None of us knows what to expect,” McCleskey said.